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Atramentous
Atramentous, the now-revenant Captain Rengrave's pirate ship. Before it was converted to fulfill such a task, it was a great Dirgenmast funeral ship sent out into the Black in the year 1005 BR. These lavish ships sailed as a final show of respect to the coastal landgraves of Tordor. They bore only the landgrave’s corpse, offerings of the bereaved, and a single living captain—the landgrave’s shield-bearer, who vowed to accompany his liege into the afterlife. This was their most sacred ritual, passed down as an ancient Menite rite and later adapted to Morrow and including prayers to Ascendant Doleth, patron of sailors.No Quarter #4 Interfering with a Dirgenmast was an unthinkable sacrilege. This did not trouble the black hearted Captain Rengrave when he heard the sounding of its horn and beheld the funereal vessel slipping its lonely way across the waves. It was the largest and mightiest ship ever crafted in Tordor, a great four-masted vessel too fine to waste on the deep. Weak from hunger and thirst, this loyal servant could barely lift his blade to defend himself before the captain’s thick cutlass pierced his heart. He cursed his killer with his dying breath, earning nothing but mocking laughter. The pirates leapt aboard, plundered the landgrave’s finery, and celebrated with a mock wake. They slung the naked corpses of the landgrave and his shield-bearer over the prow to serve as morbid figureheads. Captain Rengrave returned to Darkmoor and delivered this stout black hulled ship to King Threnodax, who declared it the flagship of his fleet — named Atramentous for its dark coloration and funereal origins. The Atramentous brought death and ruin to any who sailed against it, nimbly evading larger fleets to return with loot for King Threnodax. When Dragon father Toruk settled on Scharde Islands, emissaries were dispatched and its pirate denizens were given a choice: They had the choice of bowing to Toruk or facing annihilation. These pirate kings had never faced an adversary they could not dominate, and answered by slaying the emissary and firing his corpse from a catapult toward the mountains. Moorcraig and Threnodax were the most vocal in their disdain of the dragon’s demand, attempting to rally the kings to a show of force. These arrogant kings claimed themselves to be too mighty for a single creature to threaten them, and urged a hunt to find the dragon and end him. While these arguments raged, Toruk did not sit idly by. He observed the death of his emissary and launched himself into the sky, flying above the clouds and tracing the path of a single great ship, already landing near a hapless village south of Henge Hold. Clearly he had observed the pirate kings and knew their forces. It was no accident that he chose to land before the Atramentous, allowing its crew to behold him in his full glory. Peerless pirates they may have been, yet all quaked before the dragon. Even their great captain held himself erect at the wheel only because his hands locked with a grip like corpse rigor. All blood drained from his face as the dragon spoke. “I offer immortality in my service. Forsake your king or I shall feast on your souls.” Captain Rengrave spoke the words, renouncing Threnodax, offering himself to Toruk. By his word his officers were bound, and the crew to them—the pact made. Their faces twisted in surprised horror as Toruk breathed upon them. This baleful inferno of all-consuming green fire roiled through the air like a living thing, bathing the ship in a baptism of unholy naphtha. As he breathed out, so they breathed in — the ship and all aboard consumed, obliterated, and reborn. To the chorus of three hundred agonized screams, the ship turned to cinders, lit by unquenchable fire that burns still. Its sails and rigging were forever after limned with dancing green flame. Having become a true funeral vessel, the cinder ship returned to Darkmoor, its movements neither aided nor hindered by the wind, as Toruk’s breath alone pushed it on. Some strange glamour disguised its nature, and it sailed unchallenged past other ships and sentry towers, straight to the wharf below the fortress where the pirate kings debated. Their flagships dominated the harbor, all except Moorcraig’s, as that king had tired of the arguments and sailed back to his castle the night before. A fresh haul from a ship named Thuria’s Promise had landed in his horde and he was eager to catalogue its riches. Moorcraig alone of the pirate kings of Scharde failed to witness the Atramentous when it resumed its nightmare guise, green fire blazing at every masthead as hundreds of revenants spilled forth from its decks, eager for slaughter. So it was that King Threnodax’s own flagship and crew became the instrument of his destruction. The fortress at Darkmoor was manned and protected by three thousand rugged defenders, each a seasoned pirate or brigand, hand picked by the pirate kings. Yet as the defenders hacked each ghastly revenant down, it would reappear moments later beside one of the quartermasters or other officers to whom they had bound their souls. The captain urged them onward, eyes lit by Toruk’s fire. The thirteen pirate kings alone survived, beholding a banquet of corpses rich enough to fatten ten thousand vultures. Toruk landed on the keep and shattered it to rubble, preserving only the kings’ tower. They bowed to Toruk and submitted to His will, all except Threnodax, stubborn to the end. For his temerity, Toruk consumed this forgotten king and kept his soul in eternal torment as a prize. The twelve kings arose as Lich Lords, sent forth to build an empire for their master. Few remember that Toruk’s first servants were the captain and crew of the Atramentous. For sixteen centuries the great dirgenmast ship known as the Atramentous has sailed in Toruk’s service. Periodically they capture worthy men from living ships, dragging them before the captain and giving them the same offer as the dragon made to them. Baptized in Toruk’s flame, those who agree earn the right to join the crew as revenants. The ship is now one of several crewed by these pernicious unliving sailors; Toruk has rewarded other ships with the blessing of his unquenchable fire. Yet first was the Atramentous, once the flagship of the arrogant and fallen King Threnodax, who refused to bow before the Father of All Dragons. References Category:Cryx Category:Warmachine